Notes on a renovation.

Apparently renovating your house is up there with the stress of divorce or a death in the family. I can see why. We have been living in perpetual renovation for about 8 years now, but it's been 5 years since our last MAJOR job that involves living in chaos for a length of time. Last time I had literally just had Ruby, and I think all those hormones must have wiped the memory of it from my mind.

After a bumpy start (with builders showing up one day and then not coming back for the next 3 days) we are full steam ahead. The walls between the old kitchen and laundry and bathroom have been demolished and the framwork for the new shower room, loo and laundry is up. We have a new floor and plumbing. The electrician has put in the wiring. Yesterday the house was filled with brick dust as a new door way was cut through the outside wall. Then yesterday the young fellow from the kitchen place came out to do a 'check measure' on the kitchen plans before starting construction of all the cabinets etc. He didn't do the design, but it's his responsibility to make sure it all fits.

My dream kitchen.

Which, it turns out was an actual dream! The original plans, drawn up by Anne, the woman we were originally dealing with, the plans on which we paid a deposit and made the decision to go with this company, because the kitchen was just as I wanted, seem to be based on an imaginary kitchen that doesn't exist. The measurements are waaaaaay out on 2 sides. The first glich we noticed a few weeks ago, and it meant that we had to change a significant part of the building work, involving a new RSJ beam going in, adding another $2500 to the bill. This time it's a mistake in the measurement of the bench top, meaning I don't get my beautiful corner draws that I had my heart set on. (You know when you have that corner cupboard that everything gets chucked into and you can never find what you want? I was going to have these diagonal draws that pull right out so nothing gets lost at the back.) But you need a certain amount of space to have them, and we don't have that space.

Obviously Josh, the guy who came to measure, was extremely annoyed and apologetic. It's not his fault, and he has done his bast to make it right. Well, the silver lining here is that the kitchen suddenly becomes about $1000 cheaper.

Anyway. Nothing is meant to be easy!